There's a venue in Tulsa called Cain's Ballroom that's been an historic music hall for decades. It was built in 1924 and was the place from where Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys used to broadcast their first radio show, and it earned the nickname The Carnegie Hall of Western Swing. Besides Bob Wills, it hosted other notable greats like Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams Sr, and Tex Ritter.
It was also a hopping dance hall at that time, famous for it's spring loaded, maple floor laid out in a concentric square pattern. There are still folks around Tulsa who have very fond memories of the dances at Cains. Another of it's distinctive features is the 4' neon star in the middle of the roof above the dance floor.
There was a period during the '60s where the place fell into disrepair, but luckily it was purchased and brought back to life in time to see some great modern bands come through, including Jerry Lee Lewis, George Clinton, Jack White, Elvis Costello, and Beck. One of the most seemingly-odd for Tulsa was the Sex Pistols. Cain's was one of only 7 stops on their 1978 US tour.
Today, Cain's is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is an iconic building in Tulsa.
So now for the fun part. I was able to get in touch with the family that owns Cain's, and they've given me some of the original flooring to build 4 guitars. 2 of them will be for Cain's, 1 will be a donation guitar to raise money for Tulsa Public Schools music education, and 1 will be part of my Heritage Series.
My Heritage Series guitars are a limited run. There are 77 counties in Oklahoma, and my goal is to get wood from 1 old structure in each county and build one guitar out of that structure. It'll come with a detailed history, certificate of authenticity, and some professional photos of the structure as well. My original idea wasn't to necessarily use historic structures, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to use this wood.
For all the guitars, I'm not going to put any other finish on the bodies. I'll just clean up the maple and let the history come through with the worn, dented, finish of the old floor. Also, each guitar will have a custom neck plate with the CAIN'S logo.
Here's where things stand as of right now:
While I was processing the wood, I was surprised at how many pieces had some really nice birds eye figure.
You'll notice that stamp on the that board. It's the name of the mill that produced the flooring back in the '20s. I did some research on them and found out they were fairly historic in their own right. They were started in the 1870s and not only built the flooring, but they designed and built the machinery to make the flooring. I wanted to preserve that part as well, so the back of the guitars look like this:
I'm hoping to have these done by the end of the month, and I'll be sure to post some finished pics.
Oh, and a statewide TV show came out and did a story on these a couple of months ago. Here's a link to the piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKV_WCoXZqM
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